How Web privacy is improving, how Big Data is like teen sex and Lady Gaga’s meat bikini

With the revelations of NSA spying and recent high-profile hacks like those against Target and Neiman Marcus, it seems like online privacy has never been weaker.

But that’s not the case, said Michelle Finneran Dennedy, McAfee’s chief privacy officer. The computer security veteran, whose company is ditching the McAfee name and adopting the Intel Security brand, said that recent privacy breaches have woken people up to the real issues and have created organic demand for privacy-saving services for the first time. Finneran Dennedy was previously CPO at Sun Microsystems and has written a book on the subject, called the Privacy Engineer’s Manifesto.

In the Q&A, edited for length and style, she explains why she thinks that we might actually be heading toward a great time for online privacy. What follows are excerpts from our conversation. To read more of this interview, click here for the full post at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.